The common shovelnose ray, giant shovelnose ray or giant guitarfish (''Glaucostegus typus'') is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% ...

in the Rhinobatidae family found in the central

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, ranging from India to the East China Sea,

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its ca ...

and northern Australia. It is found in shallow coastal areas to a depth of at least , including

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several ...

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environme ...

and reportedly also in freshwaters. It reaches up to in length, and is greyish-brown to yellowish-brown above with a paler snout. This species has been tested for

colour vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of t ...

using choice experiments that control for brightness. It was the first rigorous behavioural evidence for colour vision in any

elasmobranch Elasmobranchii () is a subclass of Chondrichthyes or cartilaginous fish, including sharks (superorder Selachii), rays, skates, and sawfish (superorder Batoidea). Members of this subclass are characterised by having five to seven pairs of g ...

References

common shovelnose ray common shovelnose ray Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Rajiformes-stub